Detection Unlimited (27 page)

'Well, madam, if you care to step across the road to the police-station, you can tell me whatever it is you wish the Chief Inspector to know, and I'll see he does know it,' offered Harbottle.

Mrs Midgeholme betrayed an unflattering reluctance to accept him as a substitute. 'I'd rather speak to the Chief Inspector,' she said.

'Just as you wish, madam,' said Harbottle, unmoved.

'When do you expect him back?' she asked.

'I couldn't say at all, madam.'

'Oh, dear, that's most awkward!'

Major Midgeholme, who was looking harassed, said: 'We ought to be getting along, Flora, or we shall miss the 'bus. Really, you know, I don't think it's necessary for you to meddle in what isn't our business!'

This intervention was, in the Inspector's opinion, unfortunate, for it had the effect of strengthening Mrs Midgeholme in her resolve. 'No, Lion!' she said firmly. 'It is every citizen's duty to help the police as much as they can. Besides, I think it only right that he should be put on his guard. If you're quite sure there's no chance of my being able to see the Chief Inspector himself, I suppose I'd better give you a message for him,' she added, to Harbottle. 'Don't wait for me, Lion! I shall come out on the later 'bus.'

She then accompanied the Inspector to the police-station, informing him on the way that only her sense of duty had brought her to Bellingham, one of her more valuable bitches having produced her first litter during the night. Without receiving the smallest encouragement, she then described in enthusiastic detail the puppies, adding some useful tips on the correct feeding and care of brood bitches. To all of which the Inspector said, as he ushered her into Hemingway's temporary office: 'Yes, madam?' He then put forward a chair for her, and himself sat down behind the desk, drawing a sheet of official paper towards him, and unscrewing the cap from his fountain-pen.

'Of course, I'm not making a statement, exactly,' said Mrs Midgeholme, impressed by these preparations. 'Not that I mind having what I say taken down.'

But in the event the Inspector found it unnecessary to take any notes at all.

'As soon as I found out what was going on,' said Mrs Midge-holme, plunging into the middle of her disclosures, 'I made up my mind that the Chief Inspector ought to know about it. Apart from anything else, I feel responsible for that poor girl. I might be her mother!'

'Are you speaking of Miss Warrenby?' asked Harbottle.

'Good gracious, whom else should I be speaking about? There she is, alone in the world, and I call it absolutely wicked! Mind you, I've never liked Thaddeus Drybeck, but that he would go about casting suspicion on an innocent girl I did not think! Believe it or not, that's what he's doing! He's been prying round Thornden, asking all sorts of questions, and trying to make out a case against the child! He even asked me things, because, of course, I do know Miss Warrenby better than anyone else does, and I won't deny I could tell you a lot of things about that household, and the disgraceful way Sampson Warrenby treated his niece. If she weren't a saint she'd never have put up with it! But you know what it is, with people like that! -- they never have any sense! Which is another thing I want to speak to the Chief Inspector about, because anyone could impose on Miss Warrenby -- anyone! But as for Thaddeus Drybeck, words fail me!'

The Inspector, placing no dependence on this statement, waited for her to continue.

'When I found out what he was up to -- collecting information about all the times Warrenby was absolutely brutal to her, and trying to prove by time, and measurements, and I don't know what beside, that she could have shot her uncle -- well, I didn't hesitate to tell him what I thought of him! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, I said to him, and I should have said a good deal more if I'd known then what I know now! Would you believe it? -- he actually had the impertinence to pump Gladys! She's Miss Warrenby's cook, and I know this for a fact, because she was on the same 'bus this morning, and she told me with her own lips! I don't know when I've been so shocked! Well! I said, and I decided then and there that it was my bounden duty to put the Chief Inspector on his guard. For it's nothing but spite! Thaddeus Drybeck is one of those old bachelors 193 who never have a good word to say for the modern generation. You must warn the Chief Inspector not to believe a word he says!'

'Very well, madam,' said Harbottle. 'But it isn't at all necessary. If I may say so, you've no need to worry.'

'It's all very well for you to say that,' argued Mrs Midgeholme, 'but he is a lawyer, and if you can't believe what a lawyer tells you, I ask you, who are you going to believe?' She paused in a challenging way, but the Inspector proffered no suggestion. 'It stands to reason!' she said. 'Now, / say it's just spite, because, to my mind, he's too much of an old woman to have shot Warrenby himself, though I've no doubt he'd have liked to. Abby Dearham -- she's Miss Patter-dale's niece -- believes he did it, and is trying to divert suspicion from himself, but although I must say she's worked it all out really very cleverly, somehow I can't credit it. No. The longer I live the more certain I am that my own theory is the right one. It was Ladislas. It's no use talking to me about the time being wrong: I don't know anything about that, but what I do know is that he's double-faced. There's no other word for it.'

'I daresay,' replied the Inspector. 'In my experience, a lot more people are than you'd think. In any case, --'

'Wait!' commanded Mrs Midgeholme. 'Before any of this happened, it was common talk that he was running after Miss Warrenby. He's a handsome young man, if you admire that foreign type, and, of course, there's no denying that the poor girl took a fancy to him. Well, it's not to be wondered at, because she isn't attractive to men usually, and I daresay she was flattered. 7 think he's an adventurer. He must have guessed, if he didn't know it for a fact, that she would come into money when her uncle died. So if that isn't a motive for murdering him, I don't know what is! And no sooner is Warrenby dead than what do you think Ladislas does? Pretends he was never interested in Miss Warrenby! He was at the Red Lion yesterday, -- a thing he hardly ever does, I may tell you! -- trying to make everyone believe that nonsense! My husband said it was really quite ridiculous, and merely made people think he was badly frightened. Well, I might not have made anything much of that, if it hadn't been for what I discovered after dinner.'

'What was that?' enquired the Inspector mechanically.

'I happened to ring Miss Warrenby up, and that maid of hers answered the call. And what do you think she said?'

'I don't know.'

'She said she thought Miss Warrenby was sitting in the summer-house -- you wouldn't know it: it's at the bottom of the garden, at the back of the house -- talking to Mr Ladislas! You could have knocked me down with a feather! After all that fine talk of his, sneaking off when he knew no one would be about, to visit Miss Warrenby! I just told Gladys not to bother, and rang off, and made up my mind that the thing to do was to report it to the Chief Inspector.'

'I'll tell him, madam,' said Harbottle, bent on getting rid of her. 'As soon as he comes in, and I'm sure he'll be very grateful to you.'

'I only hope he does something!' said Mrs Midgeholme, beginning, to his relief, to collect her gloves and handbag.

Ten minutes after her departure, Hemingway walked in.

'You've missed Mrs Midgeholme,' Harbottle told him.

'I told you I'd got flair. What did she want?'

'To help you do your job. I was very near to telling her you'd gone off with a blonde.'

'It's a good thing you didn't. She's a blonde herself, and if she once got the idea I go for blondes I'd never be able to shake her off. I was right about Gladys: young Haswell did make her sit up.'

'Did you get anything important out of her?' Harbottle asked curiously.

That I can't say. But she's got her head screwed on the right way, has Gladys. She says that if the late Warrenby was sitting in the garden with his slippers on it must have been something highly unexpected which took him out of the house.'

'Why?' demanded Harbottle.

'Seems it was one of his idiosyncrasies. Another was never going out without a hat. Gladys, not having been on the scene of the crime, and not having seen the photographs either, doesn't know that he had no hat on when he was shot, which is where I have the advantage of her.'

'I believe the bit about the hat,' said the Inspector reflectively. 'There's a lot of men never stir a step out of doors without they must put a hat on. My old father's one of them. I don't see why he shouldn't have gone out in his slippers, unless the ground was wet, which we know it can't have been.'

'You don't see it, because very likely you never caught cold through getting your feet chilled. Still, you ought to know that once a man gets it into his head that something is a fatal thing to do, it gets to be an obsession with him. Gladys tells me that he's even ticked her off for popping down in her slippers to get a bit of mint, or something, out of the kitchen-garden.'

'You seem to set a lot of store by what this Gladys of yours says,' remarked the Inspector. 'Has she got any ideas about what took him out of doors without his hat or his snowboots?'

'She has, of course, which is where she and I part company, as you might say -- though I wouldn't dare to tell her. She says the late Warrenby was lured out by a trick. It's no use asking me what the I rick was, or who played it, because it wasn't a notion I took any kind of fancy to, and I headed Gladys off it. And I'll thank you to stop calling her my Gladys, Horace! She's been walking out steady with a very respectable chap in the building-trade for the last two years, and you'll be getting me into trouble.'

The Inspector gave a dry chuckle. 'If that's so, I'll bet you know a whole lot about the building-trade you didn't know before, sir! But what do you make of this stuff she's given you?'

'I'm not at all sure,' replied Hemingway frankly. 'I've had a feeling ever since yesterday that I've had the wrong end of the stick pushed into my hand; and I've now got a feeling that for all I've got nine suspects there's something highly significant which is being hidden from me. What's more, while Gladys was telling me all about the late Warrenby's habits, I got another feeling, which was that if only I'd the sense to see it, she was giving me a red-hot clue.'

'That is flair!' said the Inspector.

Hemingway eyed him suspiciously, but it was plain that he had spoken in all seriousness. 'Well,' Hemingway said, after a slight pause, 'you're coming on, Horace! When you were first wished on to me --'

'You asked for me,' interpolated the Inspector.

'If I did, it was because I've always been susceptible to suggestion. Anyway, when you first came to me, you used to think I was heading for the nearest looney-bin every time I got a hunch.'

'I didn't, because Sandy Grant warned me not to be misled,' retorted the Inspector. 'He told me --'

'I don't want to know what he told you, for I'll be bound it was something insubordinate, not to say libellous, besides having a lot of that unnatural Gaelic of his mixed up with it. What did Mrs Midgeholme come to tell me? Don't say Ultima Ullapool has whelped, and she wants me to be god-father to one of the pups!'

'One of her bitches has, but I don't know if it was Ullapool. I wasn't attending all that closely. She says old Drybeck's going round trying to prove Miss Warrenby murdered her uncle, and you're not to believe a word he says. And also that that Pole of yours has told everyone he's got no intentions towards Miss Warrenby, but went up.to Fox House after dinner last night, and sat with her in the summer-house. I don't know whether there might be something in that.'

'I've already had that from Gladys. Taking everything into account, I should say young Ladislas went up to beg Jessica's First Prayer to lay off till all this commotion has blown over. He's got intentions all right, and he's scared white I should think so. Jessica's gone up to London, by the way. I saw young Haswell driving her to the station, so it looks as if she was catching the 12.15. She may be escaping from justice; on the other hand, she may have gone up to sec her uncle's solicitors, to find out how she stands, and what she's to use for money till probate's been granted. In fact, that's why she has gone, according to what Gladys tells me, which is why I didn't arrest her. Let's hope that's the Superintendent!'

The telephone-bell was emitting a discreet buzzing noise. Harbottle picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, and said: 'Yes, switch it through: he's here.' He handed the receiver to Hemingway. 'It is the Superintendent,' he said.

15.

in the early part of the afternoon the police-car was once more proceeding along the Hawkshead-road. As Constable Melkinthorpe slowed to take the turn into Rushyford Farm, Hemingway said: 'No, drive on slowly! If he's haymaking, I'll find him in one of his fields.'

He was right. Melkinthorpe coasted gently along, and the sound of a hay-cutter soon came to their ears. The hay was being cut in one of the fields abutting on to the road, and Kenelm Lindale could be seen, standing talking to one of his farmhands.

Hemingway got out of the car. 'You stay here, Horace,' he said.

The Inspector, who had been expecting this, nodded. Almost bursting with curiosity, Constable Melkinthorpe slewed himself round in the driver's seat, and opened his mouth to speak. Then he shut it again. Something told him that an indiscreet question addressed to Inspector Harbottle would earn the enquirer nothing but a blistering snub. 'Hot, isn't it, sir?' he said weakly.

The Inspector opened the newspaper he had brought with him, and began to read it. 'It often is at this time of year,' he replied.

Constable Melkinthorpe, lacking the courage to venture on any further remark, had to content himself with watching the Chief Inspector walk across the field towards Kenelm Lindale.

Lindale had seen him, but he did not go to meet him. After one glance, he resumed his conversation with the farmhand. As Hemingway came within earshot, he said: 'Well, get on with that job first: I'll be along presently, and we'll take another look at it. Good afternoon, Chief Inspector! What can I do for you this time?'